Tormenting RAtification and BAlmy HOpe

The substitute bill of the second package of Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN)
that aims to fill and meliorate the shortcomings of the first package is only a disguise of a new burden
and new unfulfilled hope of every Filipino.

A train that was overloaded with passengers was not operated and must underload passengers
in order to operate effectively. In the same way, the overloaded tax of the proprietors affects the living
of an ordinary Filipino because as their taxes become high, their counter products will also become high
that makes the economy not operated and failed.

The government passes the same improved bill with another name: Tax Reform for Attracting
Better High Quality Opportunity (TRABAHO). It was passed in order to ‘unload’ the tax of proprietor and
cut the corporate income taxes by 2 percentage points per year starting 2021, eventually bringing down
the current 30% to 20% by 2029.

The Philippines has one of the highest corporate tax rates in Southeast Asia. Hence, the 2
percent per year was a slow process and a long time to be agonized covering three different
administrations with three different leaderships. This long agony will just only bring an unfulfilled
promise.

Trabaho also seeks to rationalize fiscal incentives or remove certain perks. The consolidated bill
retains the current incentives for two years, for investor to have enough time to adjust to the new tax
scheme. But it is only an illusion because the investor may impatiently wait for the adjustment so they
will move to other country and invest their money that can withdraw the investor of our country.

Finance Undersecretary Karl Kendrick Chua admitted during the hearing that the government
would incur a revenue loss of at least P62 billion and that amount of money is very large loss in our
economy. This amount of money is a big help for the poor and the government only waste that
opportunity.

Chua said the agency will do its best to catch up and offset the loss somehow from savings
through the rationalizing of fiscal investments. Otherwise the fiscal investment is unclear and
conspicuous to many. They may neutralize it by taxing books that can hinder learning and taxing basic
commodities which is very important in the lives of every Filipino so it will only be a lose situation.

According to Chua, the measure gives preference to projects in less developed areas. However,
the long ago promise of developing rural areas still remained a promise and the poor still remained
poor that even though repeated continuously, it was still unfulfilled by the government. The priorities
were still focused to the urban areas thus, Trabaho will also be focused in urban and rural areas will be
left behind.

Meanwhile, the main goal of the bill is to create jobs by attracting the right set of investments
through incentives and the proponent of the bill said the new name better reflects its objectives.
Nevertheless, business groups claim that the measure would scare away investors and, ironically, lead to
job losses.

On the other hand, the government proposed trabaho as a second chance in order to
compensate their shortcomings in the first package of Train Law. The complaint of the Filipino about the
inflation caused by Train Law guilt the government that makes them move in their position to solve this
problem.

It is not bad to give the government a second chance and let them make up with their mistake
and solve the problem. But it is better if we will be aware to the reality and to stop a second mistake.
Disagreeing Trabaho does not mean distrusting and criticizing our government, it only means that
Filipinos learned from the first mistake and afraid to be fooled at the second time.

Tax is a collection of fund in the country that will be used to help every Filipino and it is made of
the people and for the people. Its main duty is to bring back people’s taxes by helping them with their
need and most importantly, it is used to attract opportunities to the Filipino and not an opportunity for
the government to use and abuse Filipino.

Afterall, we should go back to where we came from. Before the suffering years of Train Law,
Filipino has a better life benefiting from their tax with an effective and helpful tax system. Don’t let
overloaded tax reform our life.

Let us underload and reform the burden of our life by throwing Trabaho in trash so our
economy will not rot and operate effectively. Reforming is not a solution, the original and the old way is
still the best. Bringing back our old tax system can bring back the high quality opportunity that was lost
by the absurdity reformation.